Bruce Charlton's Notions

It seems increasingly clear to me that the world's policies are planned by a relatively small global establishment who practice 'strategic thinking'. 

This is a long-term and large-scale analysis for which a decade is the basic time-segment of change; and even nations are too small to be of much interest: whole alliances and continental divisions (and indeed the planet) are the basis of critique.

So when one talks of geographical-population units such as the Anglosphere, Europe, Asia; and timescales of decades, generations, centuries - one is firmly in the realms of strategic thinking... 

Strategic thinking is heady stuff for its empowered participants (I mean, those few who command the influence and resources to compel their ideas to be taken seriously then implemented).

To engage in strategic thinking produces a kind of ecstatic delirium in its participants; which gives them the grandiose delusion that the largeness of scale is intrinsically morally superior to the downstream world of manipulated-sound-bites and biased-selected snippets from the mass media and official communications, upon-which most people in the world waste their energies. 

This innate moral superiority, and the fact that it is rooted in a world view that sees individual Men as merely subject components of vast masses of hundreds-of-millions being directed by strategists; is what leads to the smug psychopathy of the leadership class - the fact that they are not really human - but instead literally-demonic in their attitudes, motivations and behaviours. 

The leadership class is literally demonic, because strategic thinking is not just a tool of purposive evil; but is itself innately evil.

This means that those who affiliate with God and divine creation cannot use strategic thinking for Good ends. To use strategic thinking is necessarily to regard individual Men, families, organically-real human groupings - as instrumental; as means-to-strategic-ends... 

And this is precisely to take the side of evil. 

So; it is useful to know about the attitudes of strategic thinking; because it unmasks the core activities of evil in the world today: the 'litmus test issues' such as the birdemic-peck, transagenda and sexual revolution more generally, climate change emergency, antiracism; and most recently the contrived Fire Nation War with its sub-agendas of hyperinflation and food/ energy famines. 

When these mini-strategies are truly seen as aspects of strategic thinking; we may understand how it is they encompass the world and persist/ accelerate over timescales many-fold greater than the fare more frequent cycles of politics, business, finance, media... Even across human generations.   

But those who take the side of Good cannot (and should not try to) combat Establishment strategic thinking with any alternative strategies - because that would be to use The One Ring 'against' Sauron. 

We should seek understanding at the strategic level - but not ourselves operate at this level. Instead, our units of Christian activity should be individual persons, and groups who are affiliated by love - not groups whose members are joined by bureaucratic organization or economics; and not groups who have been deluded by strategic thinking. 

The early steps of decadence are often very enjoyable - and the late 1920s "Charleston-type" dance music is no exception. 

Since I was a young kid and heard 'Winchester Cathedral" - a pastiche by the New Vaudeville Band; I have really enjoyed that style of music - especially when performed by the Pasadena Roof Orchestra, which used to feature frequently on British TV during the 1970s. 

Later, when at medical school, I used to go see a similar band from the Newcastle area, called the Savannah Syncopators (playing in the ex palace of the Bishop of Newcastle); and later still a similar band that played at my most local pub: the West Jesmond Rhythm Kings. 

With the exception of owning a few LPs of Bix Biederbecke, and until the advent of YouTube, I did not know anything about the originals of this music: it was the more recent revivalists that attracted my interest. 

Enough chat; here are a few examples:   

And here is an impressive and amusing old video of Varsity Drag, from when the dance was still new:

I think the peak of my 'vitality' - the sheer inner energy of life - was reached shortly after I turned twenty-one; during a particularly beautiful spring; and in a year when there were no formal examinations at medical school - so I could make the most of it.  

I suppose this was when I had just 'grown-up' - at least physically. But psychologically there was an effect, too. 

Up to twenty-one, it seems in retrospect as if the fact I was still growing lent a certain child's innocence to my aspirations and motivations, which meant I was not fully responsible and therefore my bad choices were more excusable. 

I think we all feel this to an extent: there is a waxing livingness about youth that compensates greatly for its moods and tantrums. 

But from my twenty-first year onwards, there was an irresistible 'darkening' of my nature; which I now attribute to my living without religion and therefore - ultimately - hedonically, selfishly. I was no longer growing-up; and the special dispensation of youth no longer applied - no matter how much I might wish it did. 

In this sense, we can almost live without explicit acceptance of God when a youth, because youth's sheer vitality gives us (unearned, spontaneously) a spiritual communion with nature. We know God/ The gods implicitly - even when we deny such knowledge explicitly. 

This natural-goodness ebbs after maturity, and in order not to become progressively corrupted we absolutely must take responsibility to make the right spiritual choices...

But, of course, at just this time of life, a modern person is most immersed in 'career' - as I was; on the assumption that if we get 'career' right, then the other major problems of life will be solved...

I can now see that - in trying to live without God - I was embarking on a futile quest. As I have often mentioned; I had the general attitude of desiring and seeking 'anything but Christianity' as the answer to my existential dissatisfactions. And I also now see that my negative feelings about Christianity were significantly exacerbated by the (apparently) universal conviction that to be a proper Christian one Must be a member of the one-true-church... whatever and whichever that might be. 

I should have been a Romantic Christian - and I should have put at least as much effort into thinking hard about Christianity; as I did about politics, science, literature, music and my other enthusiasms. But that would have meant being less existentially selfish and hedonic - which was something I felt I could not cope with. I needed my selfish pleasures and idleness, psychologically to survive - so I reasoned. 

The 'peak vitality' to which I refer presumably occurs for different people at different times (according to sex, rate of maturation, and circumstances) - and there sometimes arises a sense of nostalgia for a time when life seemed easier simply because we felt able deal with whatever it might throw at us; so strong was that surging energy from within.  

But this optimism of vital-youth is an illusion, albeit a pleasant illusion; and we ought not to project from it onto something special about the time and place when it happens-to-happen; nor to seek to recreate that temporary phase. 

Youth is a bit of a 'free pass', because our real business has not yet begun; and by the time we have recognized peak vitality, it is already going (willy nilly, irretrievably); and our true challenge from life then begins in earnest. 

If we desire to move beyond futile yearning for lost adolescence, and for our adult life to be a good and positive experience; we must understand it in the context of God - and that means Christianity... of one sort or another. 

What sort of Christianity is then our first proper concern. 

It is characteristic of those intellectuals and officers who wrote about the Great War of 1914-18, that they experienced a permanent disillusion leading to the attitude epitomized by Robert Graves's autobiography "Goodbye to all that". 

In other words, the typical effect of the Great War was some combination of a rejection of tradition generally but especially Christianity; the embrace of hedonism - especially sexual, but also drinking and smoking, jazz etc.; socio-political leftisms of various types - communism/ socialism, fascism, pacifism, vegetarianism, 'green' ideas etc; an intense, tragic and paralyzing, yet guilty, nostalgia for the care-free privilege and security of the Edwardian era; and all underpinned by a bleak combination of philosophical materialism and hopeless nihilism. 

But, as John Garth makes clear in Tolkien and the Great War, this did not apply to Tolkien. He was deeply affected by the war, his trench experiences, and especially the deaths of so many friends (i.e. all but one of his closest friends) - yet Tolkien was not permanently embittered nor disillusioned by the War, nor was he impelled to adopt the above-listed 'typical' literary responses. 

What made Tolkien immune to this existential aspect of the war? I think the answer is quite simple; and it is that Tolkien had a deep and powerful Christian faith. 

In contrast, from what I can tell, those who experienced the disillusion of the Great War either practiced a shallow and merely conventional Christianity, that rapidly and permanently collapsed under the intense and sustained psychological and physical pressures of trench warfare... 

Or else they were not Christians at all, and the war confirmed their pre-existent conviction that the reality of life was nasty, brutish and short - and the only valid response was to live for today oneself, and agitate for a more peaceful, prosperous and secure society in future. 

Many of the most disillusioned men were intensely artistic and aesthetic people, intensely political and reformist in outlook, and 'romantically' dedicated to a life of intense personal relationships. But they failed to learn from the fact that none of these - nor all together - were able to cope with the stresses and sufferings of the Great War. 

Instead of noticing this failure of their ideals - instead of noticing that their own disillusion proved that their ideals were illusions -  they doubled-down on their ineffective strategies... And have continued to do so in the many decades since. 

The failure of secular ideals taught the failure of trying to live without religion.

And something analogous applied to mainstream Victorian/ Edwardian Establishment Christianity: it had been tested, and it had failed the test. 

The failure of mainstream Christianity taught the failure of the churches. 

Things could have been otherwise... 

Tolkien, as so often, showed the proper and effective way forward - because he was both a Romantic and a Christian. 

I think the same applies to this era. 

The mainstream churches have been taught that they have failed in the face of crisis; the leftists have been taught that their ideals are incoherent and based on lies, propaganda and coercion. 

We know what has failed - now we need to seek what is both good and strong. 

Sophisticated people nowadays use 'emergence' to 'explain' complex phenomena (e.g. systems comprising many agents) - especially when they do not want to posit any innate purpose, or do not believe in the existence of such purpose. 

So, in describing a biological organism or sub-system, they might regard it as emergent from simpler units such as cells - a consequence of what just happens, spontaneously, when many specialist cells gather together, perhaps combined with some kind of mathematical tendency for 'order', or a selection process. 

The idea is that there is no originating centre to the purpose; but instead apparent purpose emerges-from dispersed interactions from an innate, pattern-generating tendency. 

Emergence is sometimes used to explain (or explain-away) the apparent cohesion and purposiveness, working across many subunits and across time, of phenomena that are seen in human society - such as the economy, war, or the mass media. Emergence is therefore contrasted with the focused purposiveness of top-down, hierarchical, organized, teleological beings...

I emphasize 'beings' as providing and imposing cohesion and purpose on a society, because of the common assumption that it can only come from humans. But that is another assumption - I mean the assumption that exists no God nor other supernatural beings, and therefore there can be no divine or other supernatural purposes at work in human society.  

For example, the evil tendency of modern Western institutions is regarded first of all as neither divine nor supernatural (because they do not exist - by assumption). 

Having restricted possible explanations to the human, the choice is between humans working in a centralized and hierarchical manner to impose cohesion and purpose - and the rival idea that order and direction emerge-from the nature of systems; and do not require positing any central and coordinating purpose. 

By this account, evil Just Happens when systems (of the kind we currently have) emerge... 

But emergence is not an explanation on the same level as the phenomena it purports to explain. Emergence is not some kind of scientific discovery. It is not some kind of solid, observable, empirical datum. 

Instead; 'emergence' is simply a hypothetical assumption that some particular observation can and does happen without any guiding purpose or organization. 

The advocate of emergence as an explanation has made unacknowledged metaphysical exclusions (e.g. of God and the supernatural as possible explanations), and is then making the unacknowledged metaphysical assumption that there is such-a-thing as emergence. 

Having already-assumed that 'emergence' is real and can explain the phenomenon under discussion; then it is regarded as the preferred explanation on the grounds of some other general assumption about how to make valid decisions.

This might be along the lines of 'Occam's Razor' - which assumes that the simplest explanation (i.e. which excludes by assumption the largest number of possible causes) is true; or it least pragmatically preferable. 

Another common assumption about how to make decisions is that we should always prefer to blame 'cock-ups' rather than 'conspiracies' - but this is not a generalizable empirical principle, nor is it logically justifiable; it is merely a modern (and often maladaptive) prejudice. 

Yet even as a way of choosing between explanations; this modern procedure is rooted in some historically strange ideas about what counts as a simple explanation. 

Through most of history (and probably still in most of the world) the most obvious - and thus simple - explanation is that things happen because some-one, or some-being, wants them to happen and made them happen.

When simple people encounter what looks-like coordination, control and purpose; they spontaneously have tended to assume that this is because some individual (or some cohesive group) is doing it - and that they want it because their nature is to want that kind of thing.  

The place we have arrived at now is based upon layer upon layer of denying what is spontaneously obvious to simple humans; until we have reached the situation where the simple obvious explanation is the only thing we absolutely refuse to believe. 

And because we refuse to believe the obvious, we cannot even perceive the obvious. 

So, modern people cannot perceive evil purpose - cannot perceive personalized, organized and directional action towards evil - because they do not believe in God and therefore have no coherent understanding of evil. 

Thus any apparent evil, pursued across nations and through decades, cannot actually be the work of beings with evil natures; but instead must be an 'emergent property' of abstract systems. 

And this 'must be'; simply because all other possible explanations have already been ruled-out, in advance, by multiple unacknowledged prior metaphysical assumptions. 

I'm assuming here (as explained here) that the essence of what Jesus did was to make possible resurrected eternal life in Heaven. 

One way I think about resurrection is that Jesus described himself as the Good Shepherd, and developed the explanation that we were like sheep who could follow him - implicitly from biological death of the body, to eternal resurrected life. 

I take this parable rather 'literally' as describing a 'process' or transformation - happening through time - which we may choose to go-through after death. 

It seems, from the Fourth Gospel, that the process is one in which it is necessary, in some sense, to follow Jesus; and that this following happens (broadly) because we love Jesus and have faith in his promises. 

This raises the question of why is it necessary to follow Jesus; why cannot at least some Men find their own way? 

One answer is that Jesus's own death and resurrection 'blazed the trail' which Men coming after were then able to follow - metaphorically, Jesus created or 'cleared' a path from mortal to immortal life; and afterwards this path was enough for Men to follow. 

However, I am convinced that Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus before Jesus himself had undergone the transformation. If correct; this means that Jesus made possible resurrection for those who loved and believed him even before he himself died. 

When did resurrection become possible? At the time of Jesus's baptism by John- when he began his ministry and became fully divine and capable of primary creation, as demonstrated by the miracles and direct interaction with God The Father. 

In other words, Jesus's death and resurrection was 'only' a matter of providing him with an immortal body; because he had already - even while still mortal - made the eternal spiritual commitment to live in total harmony with God's creative motivations. 

Putting these together; it suggests that resurrection was made possible by Jesus, a Man, attaining fully divine creative ability; and this itself is an aspect of Jesus (from his baptism) living (yet still a mortal Man) in permanent and complete harmony with the will of God the primary creator. 

When other Men than Jesus (e.g. but not exclusively saints) have done miracles; these happened because the miracle worker was - at that moment, but temporarily - in harmony with God's will. 

The difference between Jesus after baptism and other Men was that Jesus (while still mortal) had made a permanent and irreversible commitment to live in total harmony with God's creation; and we men are not able to make this permanent commitment during mortal life - but only afterwards, after biological death, and by means of following Jesus. 

I have not really answered the question of what it is that Jesus uniquely does to enable us to choose resurrection; but perhaps the analysis provides some extra focus and specificity. 

What happens to enable resurrection is this choice to allow ourselves to be made wholly harmonious with God's divine creative will. 

This is mostly a positive desire to be resurrected, to dwell eternally in Heaven; but also vitally, 'double-negatively', it entails a willingness to discard our sins. That is, desiring to be cleansed of all our motivations that are Not aligned-with God's creative will.

Thus, to enter Heaven we must want to enter Heaven, and as party of this, we must want to be transformed such as to remove all aspects of ourselves that are hostile to Heaven. And we must want these permanently. 

Until Jesus; no Man had ever been in the position of loving God so fully that he was able (or willing) to make this total and permanent commitment.  

But after Jesus had made this commitment; reality was changed forever for those who loved Jesus and wished to follow him. 

The crucial difference between Jesus and us, is that we cannot (as he did) make eternal commitments while still mortal; we can only make such commitments after biological-death. The 'entropic' nature of our-selves (including our minds and wills), and of this world, seem to render all permanence impossible to us.

There may perhaps be some exceptions, as with some (not all) of the true saints: so, perhaps some mortal Men can (since Jesus) love him perfectly enough to make an eternal commitment? 

But for most of us, we are too labile and corruptible; and we are provided-for by having the final choice made post-mortal, at a time when we have become discarnate spirits.

All we have to do in mortal life is decide whether we want resurrected life in Heaven; and know that this is possible for any who choose to follow Jesus Christ's guidance on this path; and we can do this with the help of the Holy Ghost - who is the spirit of Jesus active in this world. 

By this account - the deep meaning of Grace, is that this was done for us by Jesus Christ; and we need merely to assent; rather than having to find the path to resurrection by-ourselves.  

Self-identified Christians are among the worse offenders - trying to prove their compassionate non-judgmentalism etc. 

But this is not about 'loving your enemies' - this is about refusing to acknowledge God's enemies - and thereby taking the side against Him. 

This is not about 'hating the sin but loving the sinner' - rather it is about failing to acknowledge the reality of demonic affiliation and service - and therefore indirectly loving the sin. 

The UK Prime Minister has recently (apparently, sort-of) been forced to resign; and much of the discussion leading-up-to and following this is rooted in the absurd assumption that BoJo is a normal human being; rather than a humanoid husk channeling Satan's instructions.

I speak with some authority as having met and talked with Boris when he still was a human being - so I can see with absolute clarity that the body and mind currently thus identified is merely a corrupted shell, a crude simulation of a human person. 

Yet, surely this ought to be clear to the meanest intelligence?  BoJo is not a normal human being, and nor are the other snake- or zombie-eyed personnel who inhabit the world of public discourse. 

What they actually are varies: some are perhaps not even human, some are possessed by evil spirits to varying degrees, others are burnt-out and shriveled, ineffectual human souls powerless to resist the evil influences they agreed to allow access. 

So let us, once and for all, stop trying to pretend that we are dealing with normal human beings, who have normal motivations and responses, capable of normal emotions...

(Not that 'normal' humans are any good nowadays; just not so directly-connected to devils' simulations and instructions.) 

I continue to be amazed that so many people get drawn into trap-debates in which somebody pretends not to understand the obvious or to believe the absurd. 

These things cannot be debated, because when an antagonist has adopted this level of dishonesty; then evidence and logic will be ineffectual.

Meanwhile, the real debate ought to be conducted at a higher level- the metaphysical level of assumptions; where it might be understood how it is that the obvious is being-denied, or the absurd is being-asserted.   

I first saw and recognized this tactic when Bertrand Russell debated F.C Copleston concerning the existence of God. Russell's main tactic was repeatedly to claim that he did not understand what Copleston meant by his questions and concepts relating to God; despite that these issues had been mainstream human discourse for millennia. 

Russell was - dishonestly - debating from assumptions that ruled-out any possibility of coherent argument at the level of generality capable of addressing the question. He was forcing discussion down to a level of technical micro-specialization that - however resolved - left the main question untouched. 

We can see exactly the same tactic used every day in the mainstream Big Lie, globalist policies relating to the birdemic and its peck, climate, mass immigration and all the rest. 

Because the obvious is being denied, and the absurd is being propagated - debate is forced down to the level of technical-micro-issues; where only specialists can operate - and where the conclusions are too small scale to affect the broad policies - and where the debate can be moved back and back interminably.

For instance, the birdemic phenomenon has almost nothing to do with whether the germ (if indeed it is A Specific germ, rather than a fluid and broad class diagnosis of many germs) was lab-created. That the inferred viral structure must have been lab generated has been known since very early 2020. 

But, after a period of denial and shut-down; the debate moves on to where it was done, who did it, why they did it - and then, the structure was itself not discovered from isolates; but merely inferred on the basis of computerized predictive modelling and from non-rigorous methods of clinical sampling...

My point is that this debate can run forever - and in the end we are no closer to acknowledging the obvious fact that the birdemic was obviously (obviously from Day One) a deliberate sham, and the actions 'against' it were political not medical, and did vastly more harm than even the imputed good; and that the peck was unnecessary, ineffective and harmful. 

The simple obvious question is why certainly-harmful measures were coercively applied worldwide; without any coherent evidence of need in the first place; and absent evidence that they would, even theoretically, have any significant compensatory benefit. 

We now get the same crude tactic applied on a global scale when people claim not to understand what is 'a woman', or understand why real marriage is between a man and a woman. Or they simulate the conviction that Of Course men can change into women, and vice versa; and can reverse the process... at will. 

And therefore, people have a fundamental human right at any time, and fluidly, to assert any sexual identity and have it universally recognized with sanctions against those who disagree or err. 

Or when people demand 'evidence' that open-ended mass immigration from alien and hostile cultures will be lethal for the host nation. Evidence!

Or affect not to comprehend why it is A Bad Thing that the most intelligent, wealthy and healthy women choose to reproduce at about a quarter of the minimum replacement level. This fact tells us some horrific home-truths about our civilization; but only if we can recognize mass reproductive sterility and extinction as A Bad Thing. 

This simulated dumbness is therefore a powerful tactic when used by those with power. 

It also blends and synergizes with psychological sickness; because there are those who really do not comprehend what it means to ask "Does God exist", and who really do not understand the difference between men and women... and so forth.

As Rudolf Steiner tellingly remarked; atheism is an actual sickness. It is a profound denial of purpose, meaning and genuine relatedness in our-selves and the world; that cannot but do actual harm to thinking, discerning, understanding, basic social functioning - and indeed to merely biological surviving and reproducing. 

Thus; in a world where atheist assumptions are built-into all public discourse; we have an actually sick world. 

In sum we have, on the one hand, a sick mass world in which thinking, discernment, understanding - the ability to learn from experience - are all self-crippled; and on the other, top-down - active and dominant demonic powers who are expanding and increasing the damage by deliberately dishonest denials of the obvious that demand proof, and assertions of the absurd demanding disproof...

And where proof and disproof are placed in a context where the most important issues are relativized and subdivided out of existence; and where proof and disproof have zero acknowledged meaning and no necessary implications... 

And the global masses re-set ready for the next one.  

Never gets old.

(The amnesia dust employed in the world today is usually termed Mass Media.) 

A problem I have seen among US 'pro-life'/ anti-abortion Christians is a false assumption about the universality, the 'natural law' validity of their intuitive sense of abortion - and indeed infanticide - as evil. 

Christians talk as if it could be assumed - for instance - that non-Christians regard abortion as morally equivalent to murder. 

And when Christians argue that especially late abortion is equivalent to infanticide (i.e. killing of a newborn by his or her mother) - the assumption is that non-Christians regard infanticide as morally equivalent to murder. 

Yet I think it is a simple fact that the equivalence of abortion and infanticide with murder are not spontaneous human intuitions, but are rather specifically Christian convictions. 

It seems that these convictions and intuitions have not been shared by many or most people in history, as they are not shared by many people in the modern world. 

The 'pro-life' intuition and stance is distinctively (if not exclusively) Christian - and this insight ought to be the assumed basis for interactions between Christian and non-Christian regarding these matters. 

In The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark describes how the immortality of abortion and infanticide was part of a variety of pro-natalist doctrines that characterized the early Christians, and which operated within the burgeoning society of Christians - but distinctively in that sub-group of society.  

Thus, ancient Christianity grew rapidly by exponential natural increase (as well as by conversions), in a Roman society where women increasingly strove to avoid childbearing and families were kept small or absent. 

It is easy to find many other example of ancient civilizations that were also anti-natalist. But more pertinently, perhaps, records of pre-civilization, simple hunter gatherer societies also frequently practice infanticide - usually by 'exposure' (abandonment of the new born child by his or her mother); and therefore would presumably practice abortion if the technology was available.  

My factual point is that humans are not innately/ spontaneously/ naturally averse to abortion or infanticide - the wrongness of these activities is not a universal moral prohibition as with murder (although that prohibition of murder may not include strangers). Pro-life is not a human universal morality. 

What does seem to be a human universal is that abortion and infanticide are regarded as a 'bad thing' - although not as bad as murder: and therefore something that naturally makes the mother feel bad...

And therefore something to be avoided if possible, and done only when it is the lesser of evils. Abortion/ infanticide are certainly not something to celebrate or to advocate. 

My moral point is that Christians should not assume that non-Christians feel the same abhorrence at abortion or indeed infanticide. 

The strongly-motivated avoidance of such behaviour is part of being a Christian, but not part of being human. And the difference is one reason for the intransigent nature of these policy disputes.  

Another problem is that there is a difference between setting up and justifying laws - which must be clear and categorical, especially in alien, massive and bureaucratic societies such as ours - and the specific, distinctive moral realities of exact situations and circumstances. 

Real morality is about specific issues - each unique; not about absolute and generic prohibitions of broad categories of events. This is why all truly just systems of law have provision for the interpretation of categorical systems by the 'judgment' of a wise and good human judge. The ideal judge bridges between legal categories and the unique circumstance.

Failure to recognize this specificity of morality in religion leads to cold-hearted, anti-Christian 'legalism' or Pharisee-ism in Christianity. And this insight ought to apply to abortion and infanticide, just as it does to arson and murder. 

Our ultimate problem is that we almost-wholly lack wise and good judges, as we ourselves ("the masses") lack wisdom and goodness. 

And bad Men (wrongly-motivated, cowardly Men) cannot be made good by system, by imposing laws or regulations - nor by abolishing them. 

System can make us worse - which is why it is a major tool of Satan; but System cannot (here and now) make us better. 

Given that the world is dominated by demon-serving (mostly-) human beings; it is likely that - in the spiritual war - even apparently-good policies are of evil intent; and may have net-evil outcomes. 

Thus what looks like a demonic defeat may be turned into their partial victory. 

As CS Lewis explains from the perspective of a devil in his Screwtape books; getting people damned is a difficult business, because ultimately they must want to be damned. 

Expressing evil ideas, doing evil acts is insufficient - the demons need to ensure that these are not repented.  

In other words; people must think or do something evil, and then double-down on it. 

This may be the correct interpretation of those rare, 'good', public policies that are approved by Christians. 

Such policies probably do not make a difference to those who are already on the side of God. And their effect on the undecided could go either way.

But the primary demonic intent in such cases is probably to ensure that those who oppose good policies, become active in their opposition to good - that they convince themselves that evil is actually good. 

For instance; the recent US change to abortion rules does not affect Christian attitudes; but seems to have led to a highly-significant doubling-down on pro-abortion attitudes; to the point that abortion is apparently seen (by more people than ever, more strongly than ever) as a core moral principle; a positive, desirable thing that ought to be encouraged and facilitated in every possible way. 

Such is the nature of public discourse in these end times: specific good may be turned to encourage overall evil outcomes. This does not mean that we should resist good policies; but it does mean that Christians need to discern the intent and effect such policies actually-have (and are meant to have) on those already affiliated to evil. And adjust our public responses accordingly. 

World War III is not only here, it is the better option for humanity. Submission is not an option and will avail those who do literally nothing. Even the proverbial Rider on the Red Horse is preferable to global enslavement to the very worst and most wicked members of the human race and their spiritual masters.

Vox Day

My understanding is that the collapse of world civilization is inevitable. If true, and the die is cast; this means that the outcome is unavoidable, and our choices are (merely!) between short-term versus long-term considerations. 

We now know that a dominant part of the global establishment wish to make a totalitarian world of spiritual (via physical) enslavement - of omni-surveillance and micro-control; motivated by the objective of mass spiritual damnation. 

Physical enslavement leads to spiritual enslavement only in an ideological (not religious) world where materialism is regarded as true - which is why materialism has been built-into our civilization.

Totalitarianism is thus the worst option for the world now (and, conversely, the preferred option - Plan A - for the purposively-evil Beings that (mostly-)control this world.

We should therefore be prepared to suffer and die - if necessary, and it will be for some - to avoid that outcome. 

Ideally, the best and most positive prospect would be a mass Christian awakening; leading first to stopping, then rolling-back and replacing, the worldwide progression of this totalitarian vision...  

But there is no sign that this is happening - quite the reverse; and anyway, it is probably too late. 

The System is vast, and what seems like lethal damage is in-place. 

The likeliest prospect is that The System will collapse - at first gradually (already happened), then accelerating (that is where we are now), and then with breakneck rapidity as positive feedback sets-in. 

The Global Establishment have done their best deniably to inflict fatal damage on the world economy at a macro-level, but especially the Western economy; especially food and fuel supplies, trade and transport...

And at a micro-level all social institutions (manufacture, law, administration, education, health, military, police, the churches etc) have been top-down degraded, made grossly inefficient (by bureaucracy), and repurposed to leftist-political rather than functional - ends. 

If a divided (multi-polar) world does ensue, and if the non-West survives the collapse of The West; then the collapse in the non-West will be ameliorated and delayed - but not by much; unless there is a Christian awakening. 

Let's assume that these Establishment plans come to fruition and that soon there will be a social breakdown without sufficient food, heat, transport, medical supplies, manufactured goods etc; and probably with increased violence and high levels of disease, poisoning etc. 

At this point The System will offer itself as Saviour - to provide the frightened, suffering and dying population with... well, at least partial solutions to the problems that they themselves have created. 

Partial solutions, but at a price....

At this point; The System will offer what may be the only immediately-available possibility of food, electricity, protection etc... But it will offer these at a minimal level, and at a high cost. 

And that high cost will not just be in money, nor just in personal freedom - there will be a spiritual price to pay.  

There will be encouragement for people to be grateful to a System that provides shelter and warmth, a little food, some more-or-less potable water, a few medicines for a few days... 

Indeed, people may be encouraged to love The System! 

I saw this during the birdemic, when the imprisoned population of the UK were allowed outside for a few minutes in order voluntarily to applaud en masse (with gratitude, and a kind-of love) The National Health Service! 

This really happened, I saw it myself several times. 

Indeed, the weird loyalty and quasi-love that so many British people feel for The NHS - such that people refer to the NHS as if synonymous with medicine and "health-care" - is a pioneer instance of the kind of System-love   

Meanwhile; this same System is propagating and enforcing a negative ideology of pure materialism; of of the ultimate evil of value-inversion; and leading to a life of officially-inculcated fear, resentment and despair; and (They hope) terminated by death embraced as welcome annihilation. 

Meanwhile; anyone who resists the ideology, who protests against the evils of The System, who embraces the way of Jesus Christ - will be demonized, excluded, punished;  for subverting that which provides - taking the roofs off our heads, the gas from our heating, the foods from our mouths, essential medicines from those who are sick.

Some such choice will comes to all of us - if it has not already done so. 

This is why we simply Must understand the purposive evil of our rulers. 

We must understand in order to reject. 

When we are freezing, starving, in pain - it is unlikely (and unnecessary) that we should refuse the short-term 'help' of The System for ourselves and for our loved-ones. After all, there are always grounds for hope - we do not know the future. 

Yet it is spiritually-vital that we do not take the further step of defending, supporting, sustaining The System; as if it really was our Saviour... We must not fall-into neglecting, denying or forgetting that the demons and their human servants and slaves actually desire and have planned-for our suffering; want us dead and damned; and that the totalitarian New World Order is their Plan A for achieving this goal.   

This is what Vox Day's quote above refers to; that grasping at short-term security is spiritually the worst possible option; worse even than a world war - given that war often brings out the best in some people, as well as facilitating the worst. 

War, indeed, may be the best available spiritual possibility for some individuals who have consistently refused to learn from pleasant experiences and have fallen-into evil - and who may respond to harsher lessons from their mortal lives in order to clarify their choices for eternity. 

And a war may be the necessary price to pay for some of the world to have a better outcome; and (on some, rather unlikely, scenarios) it is also possible that the incomplete domination of the New World Order may be a source of hope for an enslaved West. 

We probably cannot prevent or escape global civilizational collapse; and sooner or later will have the physical consequences inflicted upon us. 

But we each of us can (and nobody else can) discern and reject evil. 

We may also ensure that we trust in God, learn from whatever experiences come to us, and die with the determination to follow Jesus Christ to resurrected life in Heaven. 

The possibility of salvation is open to anyone who is prepared to do what is necessary; and open only to such persons. 

And then, mortal life ceases to be the ultimate value; and (whatever it may do to our mortal bodies and to this physical earthly world) The System loses its ultimate power over our spirits. 

It is stunning to observe the moral blindness of people, of Christians and (self-identified) Christian churches; when it comes to evil motivations among the leaders of social institutions, nations and corporations. 

Experience has no effect. It is apparently impossible for people to recognise that those with most power in the world are ultimately motivated by evil.

Part of this is that evil is not understood. Greed for money is the only generally accepted evil attributed to leaders, and the idea that people could fundamentally be motivated by a desire to do harm to others seems merely fanciful - a "conspiracy theory".

This applies mainly when there is a somewhat plausible excuse for the long-term and systematic inflicting of harm - as with the birdemic or climate stuff; but people are willing to accept even ridiculous non-excuses for massive harms, such as sanctions/ WW III and the transagenda.

But people remain self-blinded to even explicitly stated evil, such as the Agenda 2030 or Great Reset... We are at a point when those with the greatest power and of evil intent, can publish detailed evil plans... and the masses will refuse to take them seriously.

What are the mass motivations behind such wilfully self-destructive mass attitudes?

In the end, I am forced to admit that the only plausible explanation is that people desire their own destruction; that evil finds a gullible audience among the masses exactly because the masses have taken the side of evil -  and in an ultimate sense, want for themselves what their evil leaders want to do to them.

Indeed, unless this was the case, spiritual harm would not be possible; because (like a vampire) evil must be invited-in, and may be expelled by repentance and the commitment to follow Jesus Christ.

It is an unprecedented characteristic of these times that we create our world. We cannot help it, since our self is cut off from spontaneous immersion in the spirit.

We therefore choose because we must.

But most choose to deny responsibility for choosing. Usually, they passively accept the mainstream ideology, which is secular leftism. Sometimes they actively choose, passively to accept a religion... but deny the choosing!

Yet we are choosing, have chosen.

Is the specific choice then arbitrary? No, because we inhabit divine creation. Our choice will, or will not, harmonise with creation.

If our choices do not harmonize, then they oppose, contradict creation. This is, precisely, to be affiliated with the agenda of Satan and the demons.

We then have zero possibility of purpose, meaning and coherence in our lives.

So... many choices are possible, but they boil down to a single choice: with or against God.

 I find it striking how utopian "spiritual people" were, right into the 1990s, and with a much diminished group struggling on until 2012... After which I judge that nobody Really believes in a better future.

My understanding is that this is because a (more or less) good future was possible up to the Millennium - but not beyond. 

After 2000, the triumph of global evil, collapse and apocalypse was baked in... 

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, successful new "romantic" religious movements - such as Mormonism, theosophy, ritual magic and anthroposophy - very rapidly developed into complex, comprehensive and highly prescriptive systems. 

It seems that this was necessary in order to attract adherents from within existing religions (which is where most people were). A case of like for like.

But now, people are located in situations of spiritual "absolute zero". What used to be necessary now seems an absurd level of detail. What seemed helpful guidance is now experienced as arbitrary external micro-control.

What is necessary here and now requires to be graspable as a whole that can intuitively be validated.

That much is clear - All strategies and schemes will come to evil, and most are evil by motivation (being worldly, hedonic = leftist)... Here and now, at any rate.

Bottom-up, interpersonal, creative-loving,means not ends... These are not necessarily, nor even usually, good - but at least allows for that possibility.

If we desire revelation, divine knowledge and guidance; it seems best to recognise that we already have it. But inaccessible. Our problem is becoming aware of it, recognizing it (then, of doing it). 

This is a problem of expectation. We expect to be overwhelmed and compelled, whereas to modern adults revelation needs to be sought and chosen. We expect revelations to come as language or visions or signs... But these are symbolic and indirect, and easily explained away by modern Man.

Now, revelation comes directly into thinking, whenever we are motivated and aligned in harmony with God... Whenever we ask the right questions and acknowledge the given answers.

Since our God is parent and we God's child, revelation is bespoke... for our exact life - very seldom for the use of others. Seldom is there need to formulate in words, or discuss, debate, argue.

Seeking confidence or clarity is merely by continuing revelation, which either affirms and is consistent with, or else contradicts and refutes.

The key point to bear in mind is that God - continuing creator - has ensured that all his children have what they need spiritually for salvation and to learn lessons towards Heaven. Any significant long term problems about accessing revelation are coming from us.